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Ethics of the earth aldo leopold
The effect caused by climate change on the environment
The effect caused by climate change on the environment
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Recommended: Ethics of the earth aldo leopold
The most important reading was The Land Ethic by Aldo Leopold. This reading gave a clear overview of the land and how it should be viewed by society. I feel this reading provides a strong basis for the other works read during this semester and set the tone on how land and nature should be viewed. If everyone learned and accepted this land ethic that Aldo Leopold is proposing the ecological crisis wouldn’t be as significant, if at all apparent, today. His first point about the land ethic employs people’s beliefs in community. Leopold explains how “The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively; the land.” The ways he explains this puts this in simple terms that everyone should understand. Simplicity is important when trying to invoke change because without simplicity the information, solution, may be overlooked as something too complicated to implement. The community is a well-oiled machine that everyone contributes to by doing their part. Leopold is simply stating that in order to help …show more content…
This reading, or an updated version, is something everyone should be required to read and at least consider the possibilities it entails. The ecosystem is an irreplaceable aspect to our society and people need to begin to realize the damage that is being caused by not understanding the harm they are enacting on the ecosystem. The ecosystem does adapt to change but what happens when the change caused is too violent for the ecosystem to manage, and it crumbles? I hope it never gets to this point and the more people who understand that without change the deterioration of the ecosystem is inevitable, the faster society can get on the correct track and amend the damage caused to the environment. It is time for people to stop being selfish and understand there is more to our society than
How could the reader benefit from reading this essay? The author want to make people realise the importance of nature and wants people to preserve environment by saying trees and animals. The author also wants the audience to realise how the people generations before us use to live without the facilities that we have in today’s world.
Jared Diamond may be correct in that human activities have caused environmental issues that irreparable. The thing that is missing from this book, was the individual position. The book goes into explanations on how societies as a whole make the decision to impact the environment, when in reality it is the individuals who make the choices and influence those around themselves. What is intriguing is that Jared Diamond not only talks about the mismanagement of environment or the natural destruction of environment, he focuses on how human culture and beliefs influenced the mismanagement. It is very appropriate to engage into the rationalization of why events or the mismanagement occurred. Understanding that hunters and gatherers had to fail in one civilization otherwise there would be no need to enter into the agricultural era. From reading this book, one might find it oddly frightening that the environment is in peril because of personal action. The ideology that this book presents works in a way that it gets people thinking if their way of living is best for the society or if it is slowly, but gradually destroying the
Aldo Leopold’s essay, “Thinking Like a Mountain” shines light on a prominent issue amongst the ecosystem concerning the importance of a single organism. Leopold attempts to help the reader understand the importance of all animals in the ecosystem by allowing a wolf, deer, and a mountain to represent the ecosystem and how changes amongst them cause adverse effects on each other. Leopold recounts of the killing of a wolf and seeing a "fierce green fire" die in its eyes, this became a transformational moment in his life causing him to rethink the beliefs he had grown up with. By connecting the wolf’s death to the health of the mountain he was inspired to promote the idea that all predators matter to the ecosystem. He believed then that all native organisms are critical to the health of the land, if any change occurs in one part of the circuit, many parts will have to adjust to it and if something is removed the consequence can be detrimental. The essay highlights the idea that all living things on earth have a purpose and that everything is interdependent of each other.
One key premise that these excerpts rely on is the idea that the changes caused by global warming are irreversible. McKibben argues that we have gone past the point where even drastic changes to how we live couldn’t prevent the worsening of global warming. Even if we were to do “everything possible to make ourselves lean and efficient” the research indicates that is “‘improbable’ that we’d be able to stop short of 650 parts per million [of carbon dioxide],” nearly twice the acceptable amount (McKibben 2010, 13). The author also believes that the changes of global warming are permanent because we can’t reclaim what we are losing. The rainforest, coral reefs, and glacial ice are disappearing and “Once trends like this get rolling, we can’t slow them. We don’t know how to refreeze the Arctic or regrow a rain forest” (McKibben 2010, 28). According to McKibben, the world has reached this point, at least in part, because we have already surpassed the acceptable amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which 350 parts per million. We learned that too late according to McKibben because by the time the research supporting this idea was presented the planet’s atmosphere already had nearly 390 parts per million of carbon dioxide (McKibben 2010, 12). For the author these irrevocable changes mean that “The earth that we knew—the only earth that we ever knew—is gone” (McKibben 2010, 18) which leads to the heart of the text, the idea that civilization will be just as irreversibly changed as the world.
The book is often cited as an environmental classic - of which there can be little doubt - but it is also said by some to have largely triggered the modern environmental movement. Its warning about the dangers of
Another example she uses to make her point is about coral. When thinking of coral, the idea that comes to most is it is a plant that lives in the ocean and provides a beautiful color. Coral provides more than that for the ocean as we see it provides “Thousands-perhaps millions- of species have evolved to rely on coral reefs, either directly for protection or food, or indirectly, to prey on those species that come seeking protection or food” (Kolbert 130). When carbon dioxide enters the ocean, it forms into an acid called carbonic acid, which has been eating away at most of the coral and not allowing it to grow or survive in the water. This other example used by the author showing humans how we are destroying important aspects to earth. We should be more alarmed to what is occurring in the ocean because we also depend on it for some of our resources. It also goes to show if we are capable of putting other animals in danger we are fully capable of erasing our own
John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and Aldo Leopold all have moderately different views and ideas about the environment in terms of its worth, purpose, use and protection. At one extensively non-anthropocentric extreme, Muir’s views and ideas placed emphasis on protecting environmental areas as a moral obligation. That is to say, Muir believed that wilderness environments should be used for divine transcendence, spiritual contemplation, as a place for repenting sins and obtaining devotional healing, rather than being used for exploitative materialistic greed and destructive consumption, such as industrialism, mining, and lumbering. At the other extreme, anthropocentric, Pinchot views nature simply as natural resources. In other words, nature is explicitly
John Muir once said, “Where one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” His understanding of the connection of nature to the world would be helpful regarding today’s ethical issue of clearcutting happening in Tongass National Forest. Firstly, this practice involves completely clearing an area of trees, regardless of the shape and usability. Then, the remaining scrub and brush are just burned off which leaves smoky haze for several days. Tongues Nation Forest is considered the “crown jewel” of America’s forest because it is the home to 800 years old trees, black and brown bears, wolves, bald eagles, Sitka black-tailed deer, moose, humpback, whales, orcas, sea otters, Steller sea lions. However, Sealaska, the largest private land owner in the Southeast Alaska wants to invade the forest through clear cut logging.Clearcutting or clearfelling can have serious environmental impacts. Abrupt removal of shady shield trees will
Henry Thoreau’s relationship to nature underwent many changes throughout the course of his life. He especially made a much discussed shift from Emersonian Transcendentalism, to scientific data collection. Thoreau followed varied paths on his quest to understand the world in which he lived. As he grew older he managed to amass a huge collection of information about the plants and animals in the Concord region of Massachusetts. But his greatest contribution to the world is not his scientific research; rather it is the example of respect and thoughtfulness with which he approached nature. This individualistic and spiritual approach to nature differentiates him from modern day ecologists. Thoreau’s quest was to understand better and appreciate nature as a whole and the greater role it plays in connection to all things. Not only did he succeed in doing so, but he has also inspired his readers to question, observe, and appreciate the natural world. His thoughts on nature are recognized today as precursors of the conservation movement and also inspiration for the creation of national parks. Thoreau’s approach to nature varied throughout his life, but his purpose did not. His myriad approach to his work is exactly what brought about his success, and sets him apart from other nature writers and ecologists who share his quest.
Two of the readings assigned that stuck out to me were the detailed journals of famous European explorers Christopher Columbus and Samuel de Champlain. These writings discuss their observations and experiences during their explorations to the New World. “Letters of Columbus, Describing the Results of his First Voyage” by Columbus and “From the Voyages of Samuel de Champlain” by Champlain both contrast in their opinion of the worth of the New World’s lands as well as their interactions with the Natives that these explorers came across.
There is no such thing as just changing something from one part and not having its effects distribute throughout the entire ecosystem. As an ecosystem continues changing and evolving, so will the organisms living around or in it. We must adapt to the environment or we will become extinct, unable to adapt into the rapidly changing environment we live in. Althout human impact on an environment may benefit us, it can also be harmful to nature. By taking care of what we do to the environment, we can prevent future negative changes in the environment and preserve earth’s natural state.
I believe that nature and its natural resources are here for us to use, but the management of these resources should very careful and make sure that will have these resources forever. I also believe that people are not a separate part of the community. Leopold ideas sound better to me for example, we are part of the community, global issues (from his observation over the years), etc.
Leopold’s view is a glorified dream at best. While most people do acknowledge the need for some type of ecological consciousness, the one illustrated by Leopold is far from probable. Today’s society is overrun with the desire for speed and convenience, and driven by competition. Asking the busy world to stop, step backward, and work the concerns for such things as soil, rocks, or oak trees into its contracts and agreements is a foolish notion. It has come to be that to most individuals, the sight of a city skyline that is bustling with business and life is just as pristine as the sight of a natural forest.
Garrett Hardin developed the concept of the Tragedy of the Commons. The basic concept is a giant pasture that is for everyone to have a piece of land and for the herdsman to have as many cattle a possible to sustain the land. This land should be able to maintain itself for quite a long time because of cattle dying as well as the population staying relatively stable. But at some point the population will begin growing and the herdsman will want to maximize their profits by having more cattle, which in return the land cannot sustain. The herdsman receives all the profit from adding one more animal to the pasture so the herdsman will eventually begin adding more cattle, but the overgrazing caused by that added animal will destroy the land making it uninhabitable for everyone. Thus you have the tragedy of the commons. For all the herdsman on the common, it is the only rational decision to make, adding another animal. This is the tragedy. Each man is compelled to add an infinite number of cattle to increase his profits, but in a world with limited resources it is impossible to continually grow. When resources are held "in common" with many people having access and ownership to it, then a rational person will increase their exploitation of it because the individual is receiving all the benefit, while everyone is sharing the costs.
While reading “Thinking like a Mountain” by Aldo Leopold, published in 1986, and “Landscape Use and Movements of Wolves in Relation To Livestock in a Wildland-Agriculture Matrix” by Chavez and Gese which was a piece from The Journal of Wildlife Management, published in 2006, I have become interested in investigating the question of how wolves interact with livestock. In Leopold’s article he explains how humans are taking away the role of wolves. He explains how when humans hunt animals, they are taking away the wolves role within the environment. His whole article is a personification because he gives the mountain feelings, which we know they do not have feelings. Leopold wants the audience to think and feel how the environment does. In his article he also explains how the wolves interact with the cattle. I am researching how wolves affect the livestock on farms. My second article, by Chavez and Gese, is about expanding the wolf range in Minnesota. Chavez and Gese’s